


A Frye Family Christmas Carol

by Yalu



Series: The Wheels of London [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Assassin's Creed: Syndicate, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Families of Choice, Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, M/M, Past Present and Future, References to A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:06:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28329453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yalu/pseuds/Yalu
Summary: Three Christmases, three families, and one very well-loved book.
Relationships: Clara O'Dea & Ned Wynert, Ethan Frye & Jacob Frye & Evie Frye, Evie Frye & Jacob Frye, Jacob Frye & Clara O'Dea, Jacob Frye/Ned Wynert
Series: The Wheels of London [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831084
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	A Frye Family Christmas Carol

**Author's Note:**

> I said I'd be taking a break from writing and I... meant it. Still mean it. But then this occurred to me, and my XMas eve is always pretty quiet, so... fic happened. lol ;)
> 
> The quotes from _[A Christmas Carol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol)_ are out of [this copy from Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm).
> 
> This is silly and sappy and rather a bit out of character, but it's Christmas eve and I'm lonely so we get over sugared OOC fluff. Bite me :)

_past_

"It's _my_ turn, Jacob!" Evie cried as her brother sprinted across the room, book in hand and laughing at his victory. She stamped her foot. "Father, make him give it to me!"

Ethan closed his eyes and rubbed them hard, praying for the millionth time for patience. How had his mother-in-law managed them for six years? "Jacob, it's Evie's turn to read. You don't want your mother's book to be damaged if you fight over it, do you?"

Little Jacob stopped in his tracks, horrified, and cradled Cecily's open copy of _A Christmas Carol_ against his chest; Ethan winced as some pages were crushed. "No!"

"What was the last part you read, Jacob?"

Jacob leapt onto a chair and cried, "'Without their visits you cannot hope to shun the path I tread'!" He spread his arms and shook the imaginary chains on them, throwing in a ghostly moan for good measure. "'Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One'!"

"And who talks in the next part?" Ethan asked calmly. "Is it Scrooge? Who we all agreed was Evie's this year?"

Jacob pouted fantastically, but when Evie marched up and pulled the book from his hands, he didn't fight her. He dropped down heavily on the spot (a comfy spot, on the rug right by the fire; never let it be said that his son didn't enjoy every luxury he could find) and whined, "Evie's _slow_."

"I am NOT!"

" _Evie_. Why don't you read the next line now?"

She straightened up, shook her hair off her shoulders, and put on the raw, rough voice she had decided all old men sounded like. "'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over...?'"

_present_

Clara bit her lip as she waited for her turn to read, hoping no one would notice. Mr Frye had only invited three of them to join him for his odd Christmas tradition and she would _not_ disappoint him.

She and Miss MacBean had their own chairs; Mr Wynert was sitting with Mr Frye on the small couch (there really wasn't enough room for two, but they seemed happy squashed together like that), and Mr Wynert was reading the narrated parts: "'There sat a jolly Giant, glorious to see'," he read, "'who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge, as he came peeping round the door.'"

He turned and stretched his arm to offer the book to Clara, keeping it open with his thumb. She took it, snatched it almost, and scanned the page for her first line for the Ghost of Christmas Present. "'Come in'," she said quickly, "'come in and know me better man'."

As soon as she said it she knew it was terrible, knew it before even seeing their faces go still, and they glanced at each other before looking back to her with a terribly kind sort of pity. She slammed the book shut and started to get to her feet. "I shouldn't have come. I'm no good at this–"

"Clara," Mr Frye said. He shrugged his shoulders. "Just try again. Think of the happiest thing you can remember and pretend you're still there."

What jumped to her mind was a very blurry memory, more feelings than sights or sounds or words. She knew she'd been very young, knew the warm arms holding her were her parents, and remembered falling asleep cosy and happy... but thinking back on it now she felt like Scrooge, seeing the good bits of his past and knowing they weren't going to last, and it all tasted sour in her mouth.

She must have been lost in the thought because next thing she knew a warm hand was squeezing her shoulder; My Frye had appeared by her chair, and just past him Mr Wynert looked both sympathetic and thoughtful. "If you don't want to read you don't have to," Mr Frye promised gently. "I just thought you might find it fun."

"It doesn't have to be real, you know," Mr Wynert added. "Some of my happiest memories of New York never happened, I just wish they had."

So... imagine she had grown up with her parents? She struggled to picture what things might have been like. Perhaps... if things had gone well, they would have been able to keep a warm home. And then they could have spent a Christmas eve together, sitting around a fire, telling stories...

Her head snapped up suddenly, and she looked around at Mr Frye and Mr Wynert, and Miss MacBean smiling sleepily from her chair, then at the book in her hand. Something warm and big and _happy_ inflated in her chest, tingled all the way to the tips of her fingers and burned wet in the corners of her eyes.

She nodded neatly and opened the book again, flipping carefully through the pages until she found where they had stopped, and took a deep, steadying breath. She looked at Mr Frye, thought of how over-the-top he had been reading all his lines, big and silly and how she had laughed at it. She could manage that.

She lifted her chin. "'Come in!'" she cried. "'Come in! and know me better, man!'"

_future_

Jacob shut the parlour door behind him. "Evie and Greenie are on their way," he said, rounding the couch. "Said to go on without them. Seems they read ahead on their own last night," he said, putting on an exaggerated scowl. "Traitors."

Ned chuckled and hung up the fire poker he'd been cheerfully stabbing logs with. "Well, Clara's going to be late anyway. We can re-read the chapter from the start when they get here."

"We can do this bit ourselves anyway. _Can't we_?" he asked in a silly voice, reaching down to sweep up little Cecil as he toddled over, arms outstretched towards his father. Jacob spun him round in the air, high as he could, and Cecil squealed with joy, kicking and laughing as he flew.

"You like that, little man? You _do_?" Jacob exclaimed. He lowered their son to his hip and flinched as Cecil grabbed for the brim of his hat. "Ow, watch the eyes, lad."

Ned took his seat and watched fondly as they played. "Do you want to fly too, Jacob?" he teased.

"Cecil, your father's being mean to me. We should tickle him, shouldn't we?" he said, and leapt onto the couch. Ned jumped away but too late, and he squeaked as Jacob's sneaky fingers landed in his most ticklish spots, which just made Cecil laugh and slap his hands together with glee.

Ned reached out and took him from Jacob easily, seating Cecil in his lap and kissing the top of his head. Quietly, reluctantly, he warned, "We'll have to start saying 'godfather' around him soon if we don't want him slipping up someday." Jacob's face fell for a moment, then he reached over and squeezed Ned's hand.

"But not yet. Come on, it's your turn." He grabbed the book from a side table (a new copy; his mother's was too fragile for a toddler's hands now, and rested in a place of glory in the bookshelf) and flipped through it. "Where were we?"

"I think it was Cecil's turn. Would you mind if I read it for you?" he asked Cecil, entirely straight-faced. Cecil beamed and babbled happily at him, and Ned nodded solemnly. "Very well, I'll start then." Jacob handed him the book, open to very nearly the last page, and Ned settled in, tucking his cheek against his son's warm little head.

"'Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world...'"

**Author's Note:**

> It's sappy and I don't care.
> 
> I'm not sure about the idea of Cecil, and I don't know if I'll write more involving him; I _really_ don't care for the painfully common trope of children being the symbol (and the unspoken goal) of a happily ever after, and I'm far more interested in writing about Jacob and Ned having fun running around London together without those kinds of responsibilities. But the idea of Cecil happening eventually has been in my head for a while; Lydia has to come from somewhere, after all, and in some ways I think she looks more like Ned than Jacob. 
> 
> As for his name, I realised too late that the fanon name "Emmett" for Jacob's son comes from the list we see Shaun and Rebecca access, but by then I had this name in my head and couldn't shift it (he's named for Cecily, of course. His middle name is Edward).
> 
> Happy holidays!


End file.
